Many people criticize modern universities as self-contained bubbles where life outside football games and fraternity parties is irrelevant. Problems in other countries, such as war, genocide and destruction, are nothing more than the other guys' worries or some abstact topic we're forced to write about in a government class.
Third-year College student Camila Figueroa, a survivor of the El Salvadorian Civil War, set out to change this view, and organized a "Children of War" panel, giving students the opportunity to tell their own stories of growing up in war-ravaged nations.
For these six student panelists, the stories of childhood they shared last night to an audience of about 200 students and professors are not recalled with an affectionate memory of playing on playgrounds, having slumber parties or hitting home runs in the Little League World Series.
Their memories involve counting grenades that fell into their living rooms, witnessing daily funeral processions, watching the bodies of their own friends and family mount in mass graves, and seeing their neighborhoods and homes destroyed.
El Salvadorian refugee Federico Avila, a third-year Commerce student, recalled the night when he was awakened by the blazing sounds of bombs crashing and glass shattering throughout his house. He remembers a group of guerillas coming into his home and taking his father for questioning. "We didn't know if we were going to make it through the day, but at least the five of us were together," he said.
Charlottesville High School senior Natalija Grcic recalled her childhood spent in Belgrade, where bombing became a regular occurrence. She is able to take a positive view from her experience.
"My eyes are more open to see and my heart is more open to give," she said.
College fourth-year Samer Saadeh's most vivid account of the war in Beirut was of his four-year-old sister's death after Israeli shells engulfed their apartment in flames.
Rebeen Pasha, a first-year College student, grew up in northern Iraq, witnessing Saddam Hussein's mass genocide of the Kurdish population. On November 28, 1992 at the age of 10, only the darkness of a blackout kept him from seeing Iraqi soldiers shoot and kill his father.
Second-year College student Manja Lazarevic recalled the terror of sitting in her basement for three months while her Sarajevo neighborhood was destroyed and her friends were murdered by snipers. She recognized that the situation could have been worse - she could have died.
Third-year College student and audience member Marjorie Duffy said, "I have such respect for them and what they've been through and for what they can teach us"
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